The incumbent Governor, Peter Obi was declared winner by the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Barrister Josiah Uwaozuruonye. He polled about forty thousand votes over his closest rival, former Governor Chris Ngige with Charles Soludo, candidate of the ruling Party at the Federal level PDP, coming a close third. A remarkable thing about the elections was that even after the results were declared, there was this sense of disquiet and uncertain expectation as if the process was not over. Even two days after, there was hardly any sense of excitement, which you cannot pin down to anything substantial. However, the reality was that an election has just been peacefully conducted in a State that has never produced a re-election before or witnessed non-violent polls. So the people was like finding hard to believe that it was over yet there was widespread calm!

Truly, there were still anomalies here and there by not just INEC but also the populace that refused to respond to the clarion call to come out and massively to vote. Am sure, if the citizenry knew before hand that the election would turn out this way, there would have been one million more votes in the final results. Some of the candidates have expressed grievances about observed anomalies including non-use of voters register and isolated incident of ballot box snatching. Yet, one thing has been clear: the identified lapses appear so insignificant that it is not telling on the peace that trails that election. In fact, if future elections are to witness the level of lapses and public reactions that surrounds the Anambra elections, Nigeria may well be on its way to a positive political revolution.

Perhaps one way to look at the positives of the election is the AIT broadcast of the entire event. Prior to the elections, the Africa Independent Television had mounted a Monitoring Centre in Anambra State to specifically cover the elections. However, throughout the elections and after the announcement of results, little airtime was eventually accorded the event by the AIT! During the polls, the most active moment of the TV Centre was when they aired the dissatisfaction of candidates over late arrival of INEC officials and attempt by a youth to snatch an empty ballot box, which he later dropped in view of camera. Apart from that, no other major negative incident was reported! After the end of elections, AIT returned to regular programming for virtually the entire day. Even after they aired the results announcement by the REC, they merely reported briefly, a few comments on the elections by individuals. If AIT knew it would turn out this way, I am sure, it would not have deployed its resources in that manner. Even the anchor of the programme, Gbenga Aruleba, who is schooled in the art of sensational TV anchorage, was obviously disappointed that there was no sensational stuff to hype his image on. It was that bad for the sensational media but positive for the image of Nigeria.

What the country needs now is to learn from both the positives and negatives of the Anambra exercise, which includes its possible legal battles following the outcome. The security agencies, INEC, political Parties and populace should be galvanized to strengthen the things that were done right and articulate solutions to the areas that were still gotten wrong. One thing is for sure: the Anambra elections have once again shown that we can achieve what we desire to achieve. We can change this negative image of Nigeria among our peoples and foreigners alike. Let us not use the elections to gain confidence, which we would readily sacrifice later on the altar of political compromises. Rather let us seize the momentum and say that enough is enough in unending political cum electoral subterfuge. Only in that way can we guarantee good leadership. Only in that way can we guarantee development, peace and stability of this great country

Mike Nnia was an observer at the Anambra elections, stationed at Aniocha